Halloween

And so another Halloween has passed by, with all the revelry and/or non-revelry that involves, and we move onto the next holiday, St Arthur's Day, which takes place on November 8th, and commemorates the patron saint of marbles, who died on that date in 1129 when a sack of weasels was accidentally dropped out of a third-storey window onto his head.

So here are some things about Halloween:

1. It's the name of a popular series of movies. This is fair enough.

2. Some people don't like it because it's American. So those people should shut up and be ashamed of being stupid. Firstly because it's not American, and secondly because if it is American, why do you give a fuck? Christmas didn't start in the Dreamtime either, get over yourself. Stop thinking American things should be shunned as if America is a colony for Nazi lepers. The Simpsons comes from America and so does Aerosmith, so shut up.

3. That is only for people who don't like it because it's American. People who don't like it for other reasons are fine.

4. Unless you don't like it because it's evil or something, then you're an idiot.

5. Halloween parties are great. Go nuts.

6. The ACTUAL bad thing about Halloween is trick-or-treating. Take that away and there is nothing wrong with Halloween. Take that away and Halloween is really rather lovely. But with it, Halloween sucks. Firstly, I'm in my house. I am in my house because I want to be in my house, with my family. If I wanted to be with other people, I'd be outside my house, or I'd invite other people into my house. If you go around banging on the doors of people's houses, you are a serial pest on a par with a Jehovah's Witness. If you bang on the doors of people's houses and then demand candy, you are worse than a Jehovah's Witness, because at least Jehovah's Witnesses don't irritate you and then expect you to feed them.

Guess what? If you want your kids to eat chocolate, YOU buy it for them. Am I the freaking Candyman? What gave you the impression it was my job to purchase sweets for your family? What sort of sick holiday is this, that places an expectation on us to spend our time and money providing lollies for the children of people we've never met? So, no, you will not receive a treat from me, because I don't know you, I don't want to know you, I have no desire to give you presents, and I do not wish to reward your offensive behaviour in harassing me in my home. And if you then decide to subject me to a "trick", I will call the police, because we live in a society of laws.

7. Oh, also, we don't get a day off work, so fuck that.

This is what happens when you let your children knock on strangers' doors.

Ugh

Feminism, right? Sometimes, I think, we can get sick of talking about feminism, and hearing about feminism. Sometimes it's just exhausting, isn't it? Boring. We wish sexism and misogyny and patriarchy didn't keep getting raised. We'd like a break.

I feel this, I really do. I bet a lot of the people who spend a lot of time talking about feminism get sick of it sometimes too. Unfortunately, as much as we'd all like a break, it is difficult for feminists to take a break when every day some idiot goes and illustrates perfectly why they have to keep hammering away, because there is just so many more concrete-thick skulls to penetrate.

I was watching Q&A last night, and this really hit me with monstrous force, as I watched Kate Ellis MP attempt to answer questions and address issues in the face of some truly mind-boggling rudeness and disrespect from a sniggering bipartisan triumvirate of Lindsay Tanner, Christopher Pyne and Piers Akerman.

Now, in my opinion, in the area of feminism and gender relations, there are very many areas on which room for disagreement exists. I think reasonable people can differ on many issues without anyone being assumed to be stupid or bigoted. And you can disagree on all sorts of things. You can disagree with me, or anyone else, on women's portrayal in the media, or on women's dress, on affirmative action, on pornography or sexual freedom or sexism in the workplace. I would not necessarily think you a fool for taking a different position to mine on any of these issues.

But if you try to tell me that feminism's job is done here, that we are not still living in a society that is positively drenched in sexism, then I will laugh you right out of that cosy little cocoon you're snuggling up inside. Because if you're living in this world, and you think everything is cool, men-and-women-wise, you're pushing a line so obviously and directly at odds with the evidence in front of your face that you might as well be telling me that you just rode into town on a flying sheep.

Q&A seems such a minor, petty thing to focus on - and it is. It's a tiny drop in the sexism ocean, and there are sure bigger problems out there. But last night's episode crystallised so exquisitely for anyone watching the heart of the matter - the disrespect, the sneering condescension, and the hostility towards women from which so much inequality and injustice springs.

This wasn't a rowdy debate where everyone was talking over one another. This wasn't someone feeling so passionately about a subject he just had to break in to be heard. And this was not a case of one or two interruptions. This was interrupting, cutting off, and shouting down Kate Ellis pretty much every time she dared open her mouth, in a manner that couldn't have been more efficient and systematic if Tanner, Pyne and Akerman had got together beforehand and plotted the course of the evening out on a spreadsheet. This was Akerman preventing Ellis getting her point out simply by repeating the word "shadecloths" four or five times, as if that was a counter-argument that would shoot her down; or later on, breaking in to an answer she was giving on education in order to kindly tell her to go and talk to Margie Abbott. This was Ellis attempting to answer an audience member's question but being drowned out by Pyne and Tanner starting up a conversation about Downton Abbey as if she wasn't even there. And this was Pyne in particular (and this is pretty much his lifelong form line) talking over the top of the minister every single time she looked like getting near speaking her piece. It was a horrible display by three men who, according to all reports, claim to be grown adults of fully-functioning intellectual faculties. But in the presence of a federal minister whose views on a range of issues are actually quite important to the country, but who happened to be a woman, they could not find it within themselves to grow the hell up and act like decent human beings. And, what's more, host Tony Jones seemed quite happy to let them stomp all over the discussion like a pack of St Bernards tracking mud over a carpet.

Of course the other guest, US playwright Nilaja Sun, barely got to talk at all, although some of that could be put down to  most of the discussion being very Aus-centric: but when you have five guests, two of whom are women, of which one is barely allowed to talk, and the other has every statement swamped by the bellows of the swaggering Ox Chorus surrounding her, it paints a stark picture of how women are treated 'round these parts.

Bear in mind, again, this is a minister. Not just a woman who wandered in off the streets, but an accomplished, elected representative, in a position of considerable responsibility with significant influence on our government. Patronised and shut down like a schoolgirl answering back to the principal. It was, to put quite mildly, revolting.

And why did they do this? Because they knew they could. They knew that if you shout down a woman, you get away with it. Let's not pretend they would have acted that way if Bill Shorten had been in that seat - nobody's default setting is "disrupt" when a man is talking. What's more, they knew that Shorten would have fired back, and they knew that Kate Ellis couldn't without being painted as shrill and hysterical. Ellis knew that too - she knew the minute she rose to the bait, told someone to shut up, demanded to be given due respect, she'd be tagged a harridan, which is why she put in a performance of superhuman restraint and class, and emerged looking a more worthy person than those three men put together.

And this is not a Labor vs Liberal thing - Akerman and Pyne were repellent, but Tanner joined in the shut-up-girlie game with gusto. The Liberal Party seems to be captive at the moment to a particularly nauseating cabal of misogynists, but this cuts across the left-right divide. It's not even man vs woman - rest assured there are women who would have watched that show urging the men on to shut the mouthy bitch up.

I've said it before: the battle is between pricks and non-pricks. You're sick of hearing about feminism? Fine: let's not mention feminism. Let's drop the battle of the sexes schtick. How about we just talk about human decency? How about we talk about the ability to treat another person like a person, that ability that is sorely lacking in men like Akerman, Tanner, Pyne, Alan Jones, Tony Abbott...and on, and on, and on. How about we talk about looking at someone and not deciding, based on what they've got in their pants, that you're perfectly justified in treating them like a cross between an irritating insect and a disobedient toddler? How about we talk about, if this isn't too much of a stretch, a public discussion where how seriously you get taken doesn't depend on whether you're packing a penis?

Last night, we saw that the men who believe they have a right to power over all of us have zero tolerance for any woman trying to muscle in on their turf. We saw the clear, shining face of sexism. And those of us with a scrap of decency should be under no illusions: we're in a war here.

Time to put on our big-boy pants

This is just a short explanatory note for the benefit of any radio station executives or deputy opposition leaders out there who might be struggling in their understanding of the world.

Let us imagine you run a business, say, a cake shop. A lot of people buy cakes from your cake shop, but at some point they start to go off your cake shop a bit. You might wonder why, but then the customers who don't want to buy cakes from your cake shop tell you why - it is because the plumbing in your cake shop has gone wrong and as a consequence your cake shop is constantly permeated by the foul smell of sewage.

Now you of course employ a plumber to look after your plumbing, but the service which your plumber has been providing is now of a very poor standard - in fact, the service he is providing is causing you to - take careful note here - lose customers. And your customers are telling you that this is the case, which is actually quite nice of them, because otherwise you might be losing them without knowing why, which would be unfortunate.

And so you call your plumber and you say, "Sorry, your plumbing service is not achieving what we want it to achieve, and it's damaging our business - we will not be requiring your plumbing service anymore, we're getting a different plumber."

OR perhaps you think, to hell with customers who can't stand a little stench - they're not our customer base anyway, we're going to stick with our plumber because we like him, and the really loyal, valuable customers will stick with us and keep buying our cakes.

Either way, that's your decision to make - you are in full possession of all the facts. Your plumber is causing people to avoid your cake shop, and you have to decide whether keeping your plumber or dismissing your plumber is best for your business. So this is what you do.

NOW...



Imagine that your plumber is actually a radio station, and instead of providing plumbing services, it is providing advertising, and instead of the smell in your shop, what your customers are complaining about is the content broadcast on that radio station, which is causing them to avoid your shop. Meaning - again, follow this very very closely - the service which is being provided to your business is losing you customers.

You have a decision to make, again - but again, isn't it nice that your customers kept you informed so you could make business decisions in possession of all the facts? Now YOU, as a business owner, are able to make an educated choice about whether the business lost due to the service being provided to you is worth the benefits of that service. All is in order.

Now, please...imagine that VERY hard, and then take a bit of a look in the mirror.

Generosity Please

I am not telling you anything you don't know, but the media is a strange and shifting place. Being a freelancer in the middle of it is an uncertain and slightly terrifying existence. I keep on writing because I happen to think I'm pretty good at it, and that it's a worthwhile career to pursue, but I can't say whether I'll still be doing this in a year, two years, five years. As much as you might do it for the love, money is, sadly, a necessity round these parts, and if there's no money to be made writing, a lot less writing is going to happen.

As a writer, my past, present and future are all bound up heavily in brave, supercool independent media, that have given me a break, given me an outlet, given me an audience and given me a little bit of cash to reward my efforts too. They've been bold to do this, and I'm eternally grateful to anyone who's published me.

But these outlets are just like the mainstream behemoths: they need people to be willing to pay for good content. There's free stuff all over the internet of course, but if we want a world where there are talented people with the time and inclination to really throw themselves into their work, we need to stump up some dollars to give them that chance, and make sure a thousand flowers can bloom in the media desert.

So. With that in mind, here are a few places you could sling a few bucks to - if you're not already - to help them stay afloat and make a go of things. All of these are great organisations that I've written for, will write for in future, and recommend highly.

First New Matilda. This was the first place to publish me at all, when I was, in the most literal and extreme sense, an unknown. They took a chance and I owe them forever for that. They brought my political writing into the world. But beyond me, they have loads of brilliant content, like Ben Eltham's work, stuff about Israel, asylum seekers, the environment and much much more, from an array of talented writers who provide genuinely alternative viewpoints to the mainstream. They run on a shoestring and do it with style and substance, and without paywalling. They rely on the generosity of their readers - why not be generous?

The King's Tribune. Subscribing to the KT not only gets you access to the full extent of their spectacular line-up - and it is spectacular, featuring not just me, but geniuses like Helen Razer, Jo Thornely, Greg Jericho, Tim Dunlop, John Birmingham and many more, plus awesome interviews and features - but also it gets you an actual paper magazine. Can you believe that? In these days of digital chicanery, MySpace etc, the Tribune has shown faith in the beauty of the printed word, while also spawning a snazzy-as website. It takes some balls to push that boat out, and it's resulted in a real high class mag that entertains and enlightens AT THE SAME TIME. Subscribing to the Tribune will be money well-spent, but what will also be money well-spent will be donations to the magazine's indiegogo. After an incredible amount of hard work, the KT is on the verge of making it as a real going concern - it can keep operating. But the proprietor has accumulated debts that need to be repaid if that's to happen, so the fundraising is on, and anything you can spare will be greatly appreciated to help keep alive the brilliant magazine that you'll be subscribing to! The indiegogo site goes into more depth about just what the funds are being raised for, and includes a video which features Helen Razer, played by me.

Lastly, Bide magazine, a brand-new quarterly digital magazine of society, culture, politics, and basically the entire scope of human existence. It is a sophisticated little corner of the web for lovers of reading to lose themselves in, and it's run by my friend and well-known genius Anna Spargo-Ryan. For an annual subscription you pay $10 which is OBSCENELY cheap, and if you help it thrive, I shall be privileged to keep contributing certain whimsies to it.

Of course there are heaps more than these, worthy of support, but these are three that I'm involved in that, if you like what I do, I think you'll find are worth keeping afloat. Sometimes it can seem that the media is asking a lot, when you can get so much content without paying, but really, subscribing to any of these outlets is actually pretty damn cheap - it's just a different payment model than slapping a few bucks down at the newsagent. And all of them will provide entertainment, information, discussion, debate and perspectives you might not have seen before. If you want smart people to keep giving you the benefit of their smartness, you have to play your part. I, and my colleagues, depend on you. Do give it some thought.

(oh and buy tickets to my show too)

Alan Jones - A Male Life

Alan Jones was born a male man in Queensland sometime in the early twentieth century, and enjoyed an idyllic childhood in the sunny Australian outback, where he learnt all about life from observing animals on the Jones family farm. In particular, he noticed that there were some differences between male chickens, horses and pigs and female ones, in that the female ones tended to be incompetent, lazy, and funny-smelling. It was these early, formative agricultural experiences - along with the time a shelf full of feminine hygiene products collapsed onto his head at the chemist - that forged within him a steely desire to change the world for the better by standing up against injustice/womanhood wherever he might find it.

Alan rescuing a friend from feminist dog-eaters

It was this zeal that led him first to a career teaching things to young men. A student of his from this period remembers:

Alan was always teaching us things, as young men. He instilled in us the values of youth, and of manliness, and of being youthful and manly. "Never be an old woman," he used to say every day, and it frankly got a bit repetitive. But there's no doubt he taught us things, and without him those things may have gone un-taught. I never observed an inappropriate behaviour on his part, unless you consider wandering the school grounds at night in his pyjamas, firing a shotgun into the air and daring the feminists to "stop hiding like rats and come out and fight him face to face" to be inappropriate.

However, school life became stale and uninspiring for Alan, and a traumatic experience at an Easter Parade, when he was run over by a clitoris-shaped float, sealed his decision to enter the world of sport and become a rugby coach, where he could thrive in an especially manly environment.

Alan being attacked by a vagina

It was in rugby where he really thrived, leading the Wallabies to a Grand Slam on the 1984 tour of Britain, a success which more than one player attributed to Jones's revolutionary "don't talk to girls" strategy. A 1986 Bledisloe Cup victory, built on the back of manly bonding and hissing loudly at women in the street, was further vindication, but Jones cruelly lost the job after the 1987 World Cup, which was lost following a disastrous dip in morale which was later traced to several members of the tight five having disobeyed team rules and kissed ladies while in camp. Although Jones knew the debilitating effect that girl germs have on sportsmen, he nobly took the fall, refusing to let his handsome players get blamed even though they actually were to blame, and instead hurled himself into his media career.

Alan fighting misandry

On radio, television and print media, Alan has for the best part of three decades been fighting the good fight against the growing womanisation of our society. His scholarly background has provided him with the research muscle to back up his arguments with cold hard facts:

Every society that has ever collapsed has contained women. That's not polemic, that's simple historical reality. I don't make history, I report it, and I'm telling you that where you find civilisations in ruins, there are breasts just around the corner. Make of that what you will, I'm just the messenger.

                                                                         -Alan Jones, 1997

Many of course have tried to destroy him with feminine tricks, but Jones has always stood fast for his principles. Firmly believing that we do not own this world, we merely borrow it from our penises, he is determined to leave Australia a better place than he found it, by breaking down the walls of matriarchy that keep us enslaved to feminist ideology. "Australia has been swallowed by a cervix of shame," he famously declared at 2003's Convoy Of No Oestrogen, at which thousands of Cosmopolitan magazines and lipsticks were burnt to symbolise the casting off of the distaff shackles that bind Australians.

Whence comes his enormous inner strength, the stamina and drive to keep going in the face of insults and smears and those gross curves that women have? Partly it is simple patriotism: he knows that Australia was a great country before women arrived in it, and can be again as long as they are kept quiet or given regular electric shocks. Part of it is personal integrity: Alan's father always told him never to give in to bullies, and ever since a ringleted young girl savagely beat Alan to a pulp in the early 90s, he has been steadfast in his defiance of the elites and vested interests who wish to impose perfumed servitude on decent hard-working testicular Aussies. He stands up for "Struggle St" and makes no apologies, or at least not very convincing ones.

But part of it is just good ol' Queensland country scrappiness. Like all good men, Alan relishes a fight, and if it's a fight for right, all the better. That's why the so-called "women" of Australia will never beat him down, because he's got enough fight in him to last a lifetime, and it doesn't matter how many bears your periods attract, ladies, this is one testosterone milkshake you'll have a hard time drinking.

Alan casting a paralysis spell on Emily's List

HOW I BECAME FUNNY

(To celebrate my debut solo Melbourne Fringe Festival show, tickets for which can be bought here for Christ's sake, I present an essay I wrote several years ago detailing the process by which I became hilarious)

I remember my first encounter with the world of comedy. I was four years old, and a clown came to the door of our house offering to wash our dog for food. I laughed at his funny red nose and bright purple wig, and then my father shot him, and that too was funny in its way. It was then I thought seriously about going into comedy myself, and by the age of five had written an eight-hour one-man show, entitled, "Laughter: The Harbinger of Death".

I performed this show daily in front of my parents for the next six years, and it was, I admit, a source of tension, argument and self-mutilation at the time. Nowadays we laugh about it, but at the time, the comedy was so bitingly real that my mother was at times moved to tears, and at other times moved to Calgary.

I gave up the one-man show at eleven, and began work on my sitcom. Amusingly, my dictionary was missing some pages, and so I gained a false impression of what a "sitcom" was. In fact, rather than working on a sitcom, I began working on a stegosaurus, which was a far more thankless task, and less funny than I had anticipated. It got even worse when the stegosaurus ate our gardener. I had thought stegosauruses were herbivorous, but then I found I had read the instructions wrong. It seemed that every book in the house was missing pages, and later on we found out my father had been eating them. I asked him why and he said he was trying to stop the cravings he had to eat the gardener. I suppose that in the end, my sitcom DID end up being quite successful, though not commercially.

In my teenage years, my love of comedy did not wane, but it did go in exciting new directions. I explored the possibilities of physical comedy, experimenting with comedic sexual intercourse and slapstick ethnic cleansing. But I soon grew tired of the cheap and easy laughs to be had by setting Koreans on fire, and by my graduation year was ready for fresh challenges and strange new worlds of humour.

It was at university that I began devising a surrealist, avant garde brand of comedy, beginning with jokes such as:

Q. What do you call a man with an octopus on his face?
A: Glenn

Q: How many lightbulbs does it take?
A: Twenty-eight (laugh malevolently)

These jokes found great success among the cafeteria ladies, and emboldened, I set out to expand the themes I was working with, thus:

An Englishman, an Irishman and a rabbi walk into a bar. The Englishman says, I can't fall out of this plane, my goldfish are dead. How did the Welshman know?
A: The surgeon was his mother.

Sherlock Holmes and Watson are out camping, and Watson says, Why the long face, to which Holmes replies, I am a cocaine addict. He then makes Watson lick yoghurt off his violin until dawn. What does this tell you, Watson, he asks. Watson replies, Now comes the viola solo. (laugh malevolently)

Many people loved my new brand of comedy, and I found great acclaim among the Beat Generation, who were by then terribly old and mostly demented. However, the cultural elite did not, and there were calls in several thousand newspapers for me to be banned for life from all sporting events and chemically castrated. Years later I found out all of these newspapers were fakes printed on a home press by my mischievous prankster college roommate Fuzzy. How we laughed. But at the time I was most distressed and went into exile in Tibet, where I learned how to love again.

Upon my return, I set to work rehearsing for my most ambitious show yet, "Breasts: The Musical". The show consisted entirely of me standing on stage in a rubber catsuit showing slides of dead strippers and groaning rhythmically.

The show was a commercial and critical success, described by one eminent critic as "the funniest thing I have ever seen", and by another as "mmmmm". Although box office receipts were huge, I suffered from my poor judgment in signing a contract which guaranteed 80% of ticket sales would go to Richard Branson's Virgin Corporation, in return for which I would have a long needle inserted into my brain. Looking back, I'm not sure what I was thinking.

And so we come to today. I am not resting on my laurels, by any means. In fact, I just published my book, "Not Resting On My Laurels", which is a collection of humorous essays and line drawings of rabbit ovaries. I am about to release "Not Resting On My Laurels Too", a collection of the same humorous essays, but with a foreword by Kirstie Alley.

All in all, I have learnt a lot about comedy in my seven or eight years on this planet. What you need to remember is, it's all about the audience. You're not up there for your own glorification, you are up there to make the audience laugh, and if they don't laugh, to be honest, you deserve all the poisonous gases you get. So the lesson is: make them laugh at all costs. If that means that you have to take off your pants, or eat a small boat, or hang yourself from a tree, so be it.

Laughter is everything, and I assure you, when you hear a roomful of people laughing and clapping and gently tongueing your thighs, you'll know that it was worth it.

Worth it

The Battle

There is no battle between men and women.

There is no battle between black and white.

There is no battle between gays and straights.

There is no battle between Christians and Muslims.

There is no battle between believers and non-believers.

There is no battle between right-wing and left-wing.

There is no battle between young and old.

There is only one battle, and there will only ever be one battle.

The battle is between pricks, and people who aren't pricks.

That is all.

Let's Put On A Show!

Get tickets here!

It's Time!

Yes it is Slutwalk time again in jolly old Melbourne town! Follow that link to find out all about it. You can also read a bit I wrote for my Slutwalk pals on Slutwalk etiquette for newbies.

Another thing you could read is this blast from the past I wrote in honour of last year's event.

Essentially I am a fan of Slutwalk, and not just because all the women there are total babes. I am not going to presume to speak for all Slutwalkers by any means, but to me it seems like this:

People have varying views on the word "slut". Some want to reclaim it, some want to eliminate it entirely, and some, I'm sure, don't see the harm in the word, per se. But whatever your views on the word itself, I don't think you can deny that it is a word used terribly often to shame women for their choices, and to lay the blame on them for things that have happened to them that were not their fault.

In that earlier blog post I referred to Labyrinth and that powerful phrase, "You have no power over me". And while Slutwalk covers a wide variety of issues and points of view, and will mean different things to different people, I think it all comes under that phrase. Women have for too long had to put up with people using words like "slut" to diminish them and make them feel ashamed unjustly. I like to think Slutwalk is a chance for people of goodwill everywhere to stand up and say, "You have no power over me - you do not control me, and I am not going to let you make me feel ashamed." 

Whether it's calling a woman a slut because she likes sex, telling a woman she's indecent because she dresses differently to how you want her to, or, horribly and heinously, telling women they need to "take some responsibility" for being assaulted, Slutwalkers are saying we're not going to let you tell us that anymore - you have no power. We win. You lose. We're going to march with our heads high and there's not a damn thing you can do to make us lower them.

And Slutwalk is for both sexes - because we must also remember, there is no battle between the sexes: only a battle between good people and bad ones.

All power to the Slutwalk!

How Politics Works

The politics of fear is, in fact, the only politics there is. Fear is the politician's prime motivation, greatest priority and defining characteristic. The only way to understand the progression of political life is to understand that the people we elect to govern us live their lives consumed by terror, and their every decision is informed, coloured and driven by their fear of losing the fragile grip they have on whatever amount of power and status they've managed to accrue up to now.

So this is how a politician's life goes:

1. They enter politics, full of enthusiasm and ambition, with big plans for what they can do to make things better and leave their mark on public life.

2. They discover that there are certain rules to the political game, and if you don't abide by the rules, you don't get to play. Realising that unless they are in the game, they will never get to implement any of their grand ideas, they bend a little, play by the rules, and get in the game.

3. They gain a little bit of power, and are all ready to start doing good, when they discover that if they try to start doing good right now, the power they gained will be threatened. Realising that unless they retain the power they've gained, they'll never be able to start doing good, they put the good stuff on the backburner, and keep playing the game, ready to really make a difference as soon as their position is consolidated.

4. They rise even higher, and are now in a position to put forward their grand ideas.

5. They find that nobody else wants their grand ideas, and if they push ahead with their grand ideas, they'll never rise higher, and someone else with less grand ideas will come forward to take their place. Offered the chance to pursue slightly less grand ideas, they take it, because they realise that unless they keep their position, there'll be no grand ideas at all, and what's the use of having grand ideas if you have no power to do anything about it?

6. Nobody wants the slightly less grand ideas after all - would they like to pursue something a bit less grand again?

7. And again?

8. And again?

9. Their grand ideas obliterated completely, they manage to take a tiny, almost imperceptible bit of action on something of little importance, and feel a warm glow of achievement. They have played the game and Made A Difference. For this they are rewarded with more power.

10. In a position of genuine, lofty power, they look back at all the plans they had to shake the country up and usher in a new age. But if they do that, they might lose that position of genuine, lofty power, and how can you shake the country up unless you're in a position of genuine, lofty power?

11. They take a look at their options, and discover that absolutely nothing can be done without threatening their position of genuine, lofty power.

12. Given that nothing can be achieved without being in power, they swiftly decide to do nothing, because only by doing nothing can they keep power, and only by being in power can anything be done.

13. And so, with a restful conscience, to bed.

You Wouldn't Read About It

It's hard to believe, but we did it! My valet Cam Smith and I hit our target, and we can now upgrade our podcast set-up AND get cracking on our revolutionary web video series!

Isn't this great?

(yes)

Before that of course we shall get to work on providing the promised perks to all who donated.

But before THAT, I would just like to use the power of blogging to thank everyone who donated. From both Cam and myself, enormous, passionate, wet, thrusting gratitude to:

Jason Wilson
Amanda Simpson
Joseph Briggs
Joey Kleptomania
Andrew Dittmer
beccythewalrus
Alexina Psaros-Clarke
dan_d_man
philippelperez
Kathleen McLeod
Anonymous
Tabitha Tate
Griffin Rhyne
Lucinda Horrocks
Flares Sportsman
Claire Connelly
Janelle Moran
Marieke Hardy
chelseahhughes
Alison Goward
nicholasbetson
Max
Julie Lenten
Shelley Stocken
Mike Stuchbery
Paula Johnson
Susan Carland
Anonymous again
Marni Cordell
Catriona Menzies-Pike
Umlol idunno
frh949
erinvk
xflamestillburnsx
Nick Porter
Helen Razer
Jake DiLucia
Michelle Edwards
emiliecollyer
Stephen Davies
lockhart.beth
Jo Thornely
Cameron Cairns
Paul Everett
Another Anonymous
Marcus Liddle
its.me.tif
robgoldy
Stephen Downes
Keir Paterson
Emily Maguire
Evie Pereira
Dave Gaukroger
Jocole1972
Bill Dennis
Rebecca Dickson
peskyfeminist
Alice L Pobjie
Anna Spargo-Ryan
Stair Keith
Elyce Phillips
Anonymous (!)
Elizabeth Aitken
Sarah Heald


Kisses!

EIGHT DAYS, my brain hurts a lot! EIGHT DAYS, that's all we've got!

That's all we've got until our Indiegogo Gather Around Me fundraiser comes to an end! Eight Days! Can we raise the remaining $742 (at time of blogging) in no more time than it takes to have a Cuban missile crisis?

With your HELP we can! And don't you enjoy HELPing people? People like me and my carer Cam Smith (pictured below)?

How can you say no to that face? You can't is what I am saying.

And don't you like the internet and seeing things on it? Imaging if you could turn on your internet of an evening and watch me conducting an interview with Tara Moss entirely in rhyming couplets! Or watch me and David Marr assign scores out of ten to pillowcases at Kmart!

ANYTHING is possible with a high-quality vodcast! And that is what co-pilot Cam and I will be delivering if we can reach our target! Our fans' generosity let us upgrade our PODcasting capabilities, but if you want us in vision AS WELL AS sound, we need just a little bit more. All donations are appreciated - after all, if 200 people give $5 each we're there and then some. And aren't there 200 more of you out there who love us?

Who love ME?

Who want to see me HAPPY?

Who want to see me SPREAD happiness to the world?

Don't take my word for it - ask Toowoomba's Kate Middleton how Gather Around Me makes her feel:

"I feel like a weird drunk princess!"

And we can make EVERYONE feel like that. Not just me and my step-aunt Cam, but ALL OF US together, because if you donate to the Indiegogo, YOU will share in our life's work and we will be a TEAM which will be just so lovely for everyone. O please won't you be on my team o please?

Go here to give generously, get fabulous perks, and become suffused with the joy of contributing to society.

Together, you and me, our future's so bright we need radiation suits!

Dance, puppets, dance!

HEY YOU GUYS!

Remember our Gather Around me podcast fundraiser, to raise funds for making our podcast bigger and better?

Well if you follow that link you'll see that Cam and I MADE OUR TARGET! Hooray! Thanks to the generosity of the early adopter GAM fans (thanks guys!) we hit $750 in the blink of an eye, and will now be able to upgrade our mobile studio to enhance the podcast experience.

BUT, you'll also see from that link that having hit the first target in about a week or so, we were left with three weeks of the campaign to fill, so we're shooting for the moon - our new target is $2222. Let's let my fellow GAMer Cam Smith explain what for:

The remaining money will be spent on video equipment to film a series of long form interviews with people both famous, infamous, and also not famous or infamous. But always interesting.

If you're anything like anybody, you probably long to see Ben Pobjie on the small screen, cracking wise with Tony Jones or passionately tongue-kissing Matt Preston. This will be the next best thing. You could even stickytape your computer to the television for the full effect. The magic of the movies.

Now, this won't be your run-of-the-mill, everyday, garden variety, Grandpa's Werther's Originals-type web series - this will be fascinating interviews, with fascinating people, and it will look like NOTHING YOU'VE EVER SEEN BEFORE.

"Wow, Ben," you're saying, "Does that mean we'll finally get to see you riding Shane Bourne like a mule, while firing a pistol into a flock of pelicans?"

Well like my idol Wayne Swan, I'm not going to play the rule-in rule-out game. But if it DOESN'T include that, it'll include EVEN BETTER THINGS. Laughter, tears, a little bit of inappropriate touching. The point is, you'll be seeing me entertaining you not just through your ears, but through your eyes - and in fact, through both at once!

Basically we're looking to create something super-special and original and fancy, to shake up this dead-end town we call "the internet". If you love me - you love me right? - you'll want to see this.

But we need your help. In the next 20 days, we need you, if you're behind us, to just chuck a few bucks - not a lot, just a LITTLE BIT - into our indiegogo kitty, as shown in the link above, and if we can hit the target we can get this beauty off the ground.

I'm excited. Are YOU excited? Let's be excited together! Remember, just like Andrew...

We work hard for the money

Since you read this blog you are no doubt avid listeners to Gather Around Me, the podcast I host with my associate/life partner Cam Smith, in which we discuss issues of importance to all generations in a humorous yet poignant manner. If you are NOT avid listeners, I am incredibly disappointed in you.

Probably as you have listened you have thought to yourself, "Gee I wish I could show my support of these wonderful men in a more tangible way".

Guess what?

Go on, guess!

Spoilsport.

OK, the point is, NOW YOU CAN!

Find the details here of Gather Around Me's special fundraising efforts to enhance the podcasting experience for YOU. And for us, a bit, but mainly for YOU! Basically we are looking for a bit of cash to upgrade our recording equipment and cover hosting fees, so that we can not only continue the podcast, but make it better, allowing us to go anywhere and bring in more special guests of the kind you love so well. Like, maybe one week we could interview Jason Donovan. Maybe the next week we'd have a chat with Senator Judith Troeth. The possibilities are limitless, if you support us through your generous donations!

And you'll be getting something out of it too. As the page linked to above explains, all donors of $5 and upward will get access to a SPECIAL DONORS-ONLY PODCAST! Only those who have donated will be able to listen to this podcast, which will undoubtedly be of a strange and juicy nature.

Also, donors of $15 or more have the opportunity to get a personalised poem written for them.

Donors of $25 or more can receive a personalised erotic fan fiction story OR personalised prayer just for them.

Also, donors of $50 or more can have a product of their choice plugged shamelessly on the podcast - we will shill for you, and we'll do it with a smile!

Not only that, but for the duration of the indiegogo campaign, we will be recording a short podcast EVERY DAY, to help promote our efforts. The subject of the podcast will be chosen by the Twitter follower who responds the quickest to our daily request for a topic suggestion. Thirty-one daily podcasts for the delectation of our listeners! You can't say we don't put in the hard yards right? The first daily cast is here and is on the subject of crocodiles. Mm, topical.

So there you go - we love our little podcast and we'd like to keep making it bigger and better. If you can sling some spare change our way that'd be lovely. If you can help promote the cause via social media, legacy media, telegrams, hand-written letters or shouting at people, that'd be lovely too. Thanks for your support!

How To Be Good

It is very, very easy to not be good. It's easy to slip up and let yourself be nasty, or rude, or selfish, or arrogant, or self-righteous, or mean, or unfair. It's easy to let yourself say the wrong thing, make the wrong decision, to carelessly upset someone you have no cause to upset. It's easy to forget, sometimes, that you're not supposed to be a dickhead.

And there'll always be people around to tell you when you slip up and stop being good, even for a moment. And there'll always be people who challenge your concept of what "good" even is, because I've found almost everyone has a slightly different idea of what it is to be good, and even when you think you're being good, there might be someone hanging around who thinks you're wrong. And whether they're wrong or you're wrong can be impossible to tell.

And maybe there's no such thing as "good" anyway. Maybe when we argue about it, we're not just looking from different perspectives, we're actually arguing about something that doesn't exist - an objective standard.

And I know there are people who don't even care if they're not good - who have other preoccupations and other goals and put "being good" way at the bottom of their priorities. And I kind of envy them, because it seems like I'd spend a lot less time worrying and looking at myself if I didn't think that being good was particularly important.

And I'd spend a lot less time worrying and looking at myself if I was absolutely certain what good is in the first place.

I have other goals too. I want to be rich and famous and admired and beloved and acclaimed and a great roaring success.

But those things would seem hollow if I didn't think I was good. To be a good person, to feel that you are doing good things, and that you're someone worth loving - without those things anything else I do is insignificant.

I want to be good. I think the vast majority of people walking on this earth want to be good too. It's easy to not be good. And it's hard to know exactly what being good means. But it's something we all have to keep trying at, no matter how many times we fail. And I think a good start is remembering that we're all together, tripping and stumbling through our lives, and we're all trying to be good.

An Unlikely Sequence of Events

Here is episode 103 of Gather Around Me, the podcast in which my associate Cam "the thinking woman's Nick Littlemore" and myself discuss matters of import and solve burning social issues of the day and yesteryear.

Why should you listen to this podcast?

Well just consider the ludicrous series of coincidences that led up to this episode:

1. I was born. Think about that. One precise sperm and one precise egg meeting each other at the precise time which would produce me, and not anyone else. Slightly different cells, at a slightly different moment, could have resulted in a completely different person being born. I might have even been...A GIRL! Ew, right? Vaginas and stuff.

2. I didn't die. Yes, I escaped SIDS, meningitis, measles, mumps, wayward drivers, carelessly-placed pillows, falling pianos, acid rainfalls, masked banditos, and dingo maulings, and survived.

3. I grew up. This means I was not only lucky enough to get bigger, and intelligent enough to complete a moderate education, but I gained the maturity to deal with other people in a calm and reasonable way without spitting at them. Hardly anyone does this - purest chance. What's more, as I grew up I was exposed to that unique combination of social isolation and sporadic bullying well-calculated to instil a desire to be a comedian and the concomitant sense of self-loathing.

4. I moved to Melbourne. Without moving to Melbourne I would never have become a GAMer. And I never would have moved to Melbourne if it weren't for my wife. And I never would have met my wife if she hadn't named herself Ausgirl_18 on Yahoo Chat, thus making me think, "Hello, she's in my country, here's a window of opportunity!" And I never would have been on Yahoo Chat if I hadn't become restless in my usual MSN chatroom, what with the guy who sent women wav. files of John Farnham claiming it was him singing and everything.

5. I met Cam Smith. I am not at liberty to divulge all the details, but suffice to say it involved poverty and desperation and hunger and sleep deprivation and multi-million dollar mergers and a wall of autographed cricket bats.

6. Cam didn't hate me to the point of physical violence. I don't need to elaborate how necessary/unlikely this was.

7. I began recording a podcast with Cam.

8. I kept recording a podcast with Cam.

9. Neither Cam nor I at any point during the podcast recording screamed "I CAN'T DO THIS ANYMORE YOU ARE SMOTHERING ME I NEED SOME SPACE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD" and rushed out sobbing into the night.

10. We kept this up for 102 episodes.

11. Neither of us fell onto train tracks before recording the 103rd.

12. We recorded the 103rd.


An amazing sequence, no? And now you realise how infinitesimally unlikely it is that we have reached this point, now you see the incredible nature of random chance and how it leads us to outcomes unexpected and delightful, now that you have been humbled by the tininess of all we cogs in the great cosmic machine...

Don't you think maybe you should listen?

Carbon: The Weightless Killer

A lot of people ask me, "Ben what is to be done about the carbon tax?" I often express surprise that they are asking me this, since I never told them my name and they were supposedly at the door just to deliver a package. But I recognise my civic duties and thus I do my best to answer.

The short answer of course is: nothing is to be done. It is a fait accompli: Juliar "Julia" Gillard and her mob of baying leftist tree-kangaroos have put the tax in place and we will just have to deal with it until such time as Tony Abbott, limbs flailing, double dissolutions us all to a better place, which may be in 2014 or 2015 depending on El Nino.

And obviously it is a problem, as already reports are filtering through that prices are skyrocketing like directionless petrels on the back of the carbon price. In some places bread is up 36 percent, and it also tastes worse because to cut costs bakers have had to put ground-up pine cones in the dough. Are you happy now, Steve Gibbons MP?

A short list of things that are now unaffordable:

- bread
- milk
- eggs
- some more eggs
- cars
- gondola rides
- rubber gloves
- petrol
- cans to carry petrol in
- diamond rings
- heroin
- legwarmers
- love

Life as we know it is over and so we must live a life as we did not know it but know it now unlike before. Confused? Not nearly confused enough, as Aragorn might say. But the carbon tax is not all fantasy novels and wordplay. It has real-life consequences for real-life Australians.

Take the case of Terrigal's Jean-Marie Hofspeck, who came home from work last Tuesday to find her prize-winning Pomeranians had been slaughtered and her eldest son was now a rabbi. The shock was enough to cause her to immediately build an in-ground swimming pool in her backyard. Perhaps the Australian Labor "Party" sees fit to wash its hands of responsibility for this, but we battlers know better. Do we not? Or is it?

What is a carbon tax anyway? Many people think it is a tax on carbon. But actually it is a tax on carbon dioxide, a colourless odourless weightless childless jobless gas which makes all life on earth possible. Fifty-eight percent of the human body is made up of carbon dioxide, and birds use it to grow wings. Scientists standing near the CSIRO estimate that a 20% reduction in global carbon dioxide levels will kill us all instantly. A dire warning indeed, and yet Julia "Vaginoplasty" Gillard sees fit to take this risk, simply to satisfy those to whom left-wing principles and Aboriginal land rights are more important than the air we breathe and steel refineries.

But what can you do to survive the carbon tax? First of all, hold your breath. Hold it...hold it...only let it out when you feel you're about to die. If you make sure every breath you take lasts this long you can cut your oxygen bills by 67% and have more money to buy solar panels, which will cut your electricity bills by 45% so you have more money to pay off your gambling debts which Labor wants to deny you the right to amass because of its nanny state agenda.

How will the carbon tax affect your everyday life? It will of course destroy it. In fact the legislation specifically mandates that life is no longer worth living. Political correctness gone mad? It seems so.

But still we must do our best. Carbon tax may crush us beneath its fragrant hoof, but that is no reason to give up hope. A far better reason to give up hope is this:

Thank you for your time.

It's been a while

I have not written a blog post for a while, which has probably caused you to get all in a lather, getting all judgmental and stuff. Typical.

But the reason I haven't is that I was on HOLIDAY. And on my holiday I learned these things:

1. If you drive for long enough, your foot literally falls off.

2. Luna Park in Sydney is overpriced and contains terrifying demons wandering around on stilts.

3. On the Gold Coast it rains all the time. Constantly. Any brochures to the contrary are a sick joke.

Oh right, I had a blog post to write. Um, I'll get back to you.

Go to Hell, Australia

Go to Hell, you preening dandies, congratulating yourself on your superior civilisation, your higher levels of enlightenment, your more advanced phase of humanity, constantly patting your own head with such single-minded enthusiasm it never occurs to you to ask yourself what you're contributing to this world.

Go to Hell, you superior preachers, lecturing away at the lower orders for their failure to think the right thoughts, read the right books, watch the right movies or know the right quotes. Go to Hell you pontificating sacks of air who'd rather spend a week scrutinising a sentence with a magnifying glass for traces of incorrect word usage than spend a minute improving someone's life. Go to Hell you sour, withered bags of bones who know nothing of life but how to suck the joy from it, and who know nothing of humanity but how to take offence from it, and who feed on moral superiority and outrage, and who measure life's wonders only in exuberance crushed, difference homogenised, and spirit extinguished.

Go to Hell you snarling halfwits who can find no relief from the sorrows of life except that comes from identifying someone to blame, whose only reaction to being spat on from above is to look downward to see who they can spit on in turn. Go to Hell you grasping trolls with your windy shrieking greed and your drooling envy and your demands that not a raindrop should fall upon the earth without a slice of it being deposited upon your doorstep, and go to Hell you hollow kleptocrats who build your own power on the sale of warning beacons to be lit whenever someone is getting something that someone else doesn't have.

Go to Hell you hidebound bubbles of self-righteous nothing, with your wailing laments for better times, times when life was simpler and folks were friendlier and the air was sweeter and your days were unperturbed by the anxiety of someone who looked different to you walking the streets without fear.

Go to Hell you savage-brained zealots whose lives are so devoid of pleasure and empty of purpose that your atrophied minds can find occupation only in the pursuit and degradation of those with the audacity to seek happiness in ways that you will decry as unnatural, out of nothing but your own tradition-gnarled loathing for anything that disturbs the slimy stagnation you've grown accustomed to. Go to Hell you slobbering apes, with your perverted sense of satisfaction at the violence you wreak on those whose species you are not worthy to inhabit.

Go to Hell you primeval thugs, who deny agency and pride to members of the opposite sex, lest they be given the unnerving impression that they might be human beings. Go to Hell you snivelling apologists for atrocity, you sniggering dogs of oppression, you sleek, grinning, gloating, hearty, human livestock, who bleat and bellow of equality and fairness up until the point at which your fellow citizen asks if you might be persuaded to share. And go to Hell you vomitous frauds who would throw a veil of dewy-eyed concern over your efforts to keep those you claim to protect in a permanent state of fear and inferiority.

And you too, can go to Hell, you hand-wringing hypocrites, who hide your cowardice and selfishness behind that weeping wall of self-righteousness, who feel the prickles of guilt upon your flesh and will not rest until the source of that guilt is nudged neatly out of your line of sight. Go to Hell, you who wail and beat your breast and dab prettily at your eyes over the tragic plight of those less fortunate, and propose as a solution that those less fortunate be made to stay less fortunate, lest they bother us any further. Go to Hell you self-sainted reptilian liars, who demand that we prevent the poor and the desperate from risking their lives on our seas, and insist that instead they risk their lives in their own countries, where we won't have to worry about them, who cry Compassion as your only watchword when proclaiming your schemes to save people's lives by denying them a life worth living, when lecturing us all on the necessity of cruelty in the service of kindness, and kindness in the service of indifference. Go to Hell you leering goblins of misery, and dig yourselves deeper with every oily, disingenuous word, with every fork-tongued proposal to build better fences to obviate the need to concern ourselves with how we treat our neighbours.

And go to Hell, too, you damnable bigots who cling gleefully to that map of the world that floats before your eyes, a world populated by brown puppets with strings to be pulled, and kindly white puppeteers with plans that are all for the best.

But most of all, go to Hell you lordly chiefs, who seat yourselves on high, atop hills of broken bodies and treasure piles of worldly pain, who draw power and wealth from all those mentioned above. Go to Hell you warlords who owe your position to the dissemination of fear and the force-feeding of hatred, to the fuelling of anger and the widening of divisions. Go to Hell you vampiric stormcrows, spewing darkness and terror onto the quivering masses below, because you know that without darkness and terror someone may catch a glimpse of the vacuuous toads you really are. Go to Hell you avaricious bottom-feeding insects who amass more and more at the expense of those who have nothing, who build your castles from the disappointments of those with not a hundredth your fortune, and a hundred times your worth.

Go to Hell, all of you, for your breeding of inhumanity and profiting from cruelty, your celebration of ignorance and destruction of knowledge, your contempt for the world and vendetta against those you share it with, and your lying, hateful, blustering, selfish, imbecilic rampage through life.

And go to Hell, all of us, who won't lift a finger to change a thing, safe in the knowledge that as long as we can find somewhere that's worse, there's no reason to try to make here any better.

We can all, safely and soundly, go to Hell.

How To Fairfax (and WIN!)

A lot of people have been talking about Fairfax and where it went wrong and where it can go right and what needs to be fixed and how far back in time we have to travel in our magical time-fridge to fix it. 

Now, I am in a unique position to address this issue, because on the one hand I am a Fairfax columnist, which means I am a moribund dinosaur just begging to be put out of my misery, but on the other hand I am a blogger, which means I am an agile, exciting citizen journalist taking my rightful place at the peak of the media mountain and set to make a fortune in promoting nappy rash cream. And on a freakish third hand, I have a keyboard in front of me, which means I am a seasoned expert in the media industry and corporate governance.

As such I, like everyone else in the country, know exactly where Fairfax failed, and exactly how it can succeed.

First of all, it needs to invest more in quality journalism. People want to read quality journalism and it is only by investing in quality journalism that money can be made. Nobody ever made money in Australia by not investing in quality journalism - just look at Solomon Lew. Look at him! Weirdly out of proportion, isn't he? You see me point.

Secondly, engage with readers on social media. This might mean "logging in" to  do twitters, or getting a Second Life account, but the important thing is to engage. News is better when it's engaged. A good way to engage with readers is by saying "Thanks for your feedback!" or "That was a good joke about how I'm losing my job! LOL!"

Thirdly, be bloggers. Bloggers are the people who report the news nowadays, not journalists, and being a blogger is the best thing to be. Bloggers are more flexible and intelligent and they are not straitjacketed by old-style notions of what reporting means, so they are free to tell the truth. If you stop being journalists and start being bloggers you will tell more of the truth and less of the not-truth.

Fourthly, stop being bloggers. Blogger don't know anything because they don't wear leather shoes and never hang around in bars with Paul Howes. Bloggers are fine for sitting around in their pyjamas and putting stupid captions on a photo of Tony Abbott in a shower cap, but if you want someone to break into the Watergate you need a good old-fashioned alcoholic, and bloggers will never be that, so stop being bloggers.

Fifthly, don't put up paywalls! What is the first rule of business? Give the customer what they want. Customers don't like paywalls - they will not pay for them. What customers want to pay for is free content. If you give readers free content they will pay through the nose - believe me, the minute you start charging for things, customers will stop paying for them. If you REALLY want to make a lot of money, you have to stop expecting anyone to give you any money. This is an Ironclad Law Of The Media

Sixthly, get a Kickstarter. Kickstarters are a way for Clever People in the Digital Age to make money by asking people to give them money for things. This is different from a paywall because it is crowd-sourcing and is the democratisation of information. What you do is, you set a certain limit that has to be reached, for example "If we raise $2500 I will tell you what the Police Commissioner said at his press conference" and everyone who makes a donation of over $50 gets a t-shirt reading "Journalists Do It Till You're Accountable". In this way everyone feels they have gained Ownership of things, and the media industry thrives in a post-factual world.

Happy Fairfaxing!

Somewhere

G

Racking Up The Century

Way back in 2009, when my old friend Cam Smith said to me, "Hey, let's do a podcast!" I never thought we would ever record 100 episodes. Mainly because I refused to do it, telling Cam in no uncertain terms what I thought of his shady schemes. And yet, I began to weaken when he explained he needed to do a podcast to pay off his gambling debts. And I weakened even further when he said he had my children in a secret location and would allow me telephone contact with them if I made podcasts with him. And so I enthusiastically joined in the fun.

We named the podcast "Gather Around Me", after our favourite movie, starring Mickey Rooney and Jessie Matthews, which told the story of an impoverished chorus girl who meets a wizened dwarf in the street who she beats to death and robs, thus finding happiness and wealth.

Since those humble beginnings, when we recorded our first 'cast, which mainly consisted of Cam switching the microphone on and off and whispering "test" for half an hour, we've gone from strength to strength. From episode 15, when we recorded the sounds of our vigorous lovemaking, to episode 28, when we killed a pig live in the studio, to episode 49, the infamous "cholera" episode, to episode 67, when special guest Ron Barassi drank three litres of Jaegermeister and turkey-slapped the microphone repeatedly while reciting The Highwayman; it's been a wild ride. I've loved/hated every minute of it.

To get to 100 podcasts is a massive achievement - not many people do it, or even desire to. But after lots of hard work and unidentified pills, here we are, the Derek and Clive of our generation, and I am very very proud to present to you all:

GATHER AROUND ME EPISODE 100 STARRING SPECIAL GUEST MULTI-MEDIA SUPERSTAR MARIEKE HARDY

Featuring discussions, among other things, of:

- Neighbours' racism
- Todd McKenney's anger
- Nemeses
- Time-travelling comedy
- Ann-Maree Biggar
- Being sober
- The follies of youth

Enjoy listening! If you're new to Gather Around me, why not browse the archives and subscribe on iTunes? It's free, and there are surprises around every corner!

So You've Created Human Clones: A how-to guide on identical twins

1. DON'T PANIC: The automatic reaction from anyone, upon seeing that they have spawned two creatures of identical appearance, is to scream at the unholy horror of it all and claw their own eyes out. There is NO NEED for this. Go for a brisk walk and calm down.

2. Be kind to yourself. You are definitely going to get them mixed up at some point. Don't beat yourself up over this: it is not your fault for being unable to tell the difference between your children; it is the children's fault for looking so alike. Just remember that children don't really understand anything that's happening until they're about six, and if in the preceding period they accidentally get their names swapped, no harm done. Alternatively, have one of them tattooed.

3. Do NOT dress them alike. This is very important, although there are exceptions: for example, those parents who would like the world to think of them as complete knobends may like to dress their twins in matching outfits.

4. Don't worry about them running into each other: latest research indicates this won't cause them to fuse together into Siamese twins.

5. Allow extra time for all public activities: you are going to be slowed down by the strangers who will stop you every two minutes to ask questions like "Are they twins?" and "Aren't they gorgeous?" and tell you long pointless stories about how their sister has twins.

6. Twins only have half a stomach each, so you won't need to buy any extra food.

7. Introduce them early to the eerie phenomenon of sympathetic twin-pain transference. Twins like to fight, so it's important to make it clear as quickly as possible that if one twin hurts, the other twin is going to hurt too.

8. Be PREPARED. You will notice, the first time both of them walk at you at once, calling your name, how much this resembles a zombie apocalypse. This can alarm the unwary parent: do NOT keep a gun in the house.

9. Be AWARE of their whereabouts at all times. They will on most occasions, when let loose, immediately stagger randomly off in different directions. Implanting tracking devices in their brains should help you keep tabs on them.

10. Know that they will be incredibly CUTE. Be vigilant at all times against their powers of cuteness, and remember the cardinal rule of parenthood: NEVER TRUST A TWIN




This post in honour of my own girls, and my most beloved grown-up clones, Jo and Shelley. Happy birthday ladies.

WORLD AFFAIRS! with Guest Blogger Kathy Lette

World affairs have always been a passion of mine - in fact, I've had affairs ALL AROUND THE WORLD, right? The ladies know what I'm talking about. But seriously, we live in a time of great international turmoil, and it's up to all of us to become better informed about the events that shape our lives. After all, most people believe that UNESCO is a new supermarket chain, am I right? So it's up to people like me and their clever writing to educate folk, and I'm great at educating - just the other day I taught Geoffrey how to do the dishes! Wowee!

Right now one of the greatest concerns facing the world is the Greek economic crisis, and it's no wonder they're in trouble, what with all the money they spend on plates! Whee! The real trouble is they can't pay their debts, which is a problem any woman can understand - how hard is it to pay off the credit card after getting a new pair of shoes, ladies? And what this means is they might have to default on their debt, which is always difficult - anyone who's married knows how hard it is to figure out whose "default" it is! This could result in Greece being expelled from the Eurozone. That probably doesn't sound like much of a big deal - most people probably think Euro is what coxswains yell out on the river! - but it really is, because that kind of financial contagion could easily spread here, a lot like crabs, and we wouldn't want Australia to get a nasty itch "down there"! Know what I'm saying ladies?

I mean look, I've always thought economics is a lot like having sex with Clive James - boring and depressing and taking up far too much space in the papers - but actually it has quite a big effect on lots of our lives, because without economics, we'll have no money, and without money how do we buy lipstick right girls?

Another big issue in world affairs is terrorism, which is a problem around the globe, although if they really want to see terrorism they should meet my mother-in-law!

Right?

Anyway, terrorism is a major problem, because a lot of people in Muslim countries want to blow us up, and who can blame them - have you seen the clothes they have to wear? I mean, get some colour into your frocks, girlfriend!

There's a lot of debate about the best way to deal with terrorism - personally I'd make all the terrorists meet my mother-in-law! Oh...wait...I already did that one didn't I? Anyway, many people think we should continue waging the War On Terror, which I'm all in favour of - let's start with those shoulder pads that the young girls wear nowadays! They sure terrify me! Oh sweetie are you a lady or a linebacker, is what I ask them! Talk about terrorists! Which we were, weren't we?

Yes, the War on Terror - what's the best way to go about it? Should we try to reason with them - any woman knows how hard it is to reason with a man when he's ready to explode! Or should we take a harsh line, including military action and torture? And any woman knows how effective torture can be - how else could we get our men to buy us jewellery! It's a difficult dilemma to resolve, a lot like whether to say you've got a headache or say you've got herpes.

But is it as big a dilemma as climate change? At our house we know all about climate change - the air gets really chilly every time I ask Geoff to set the table! But global warming is a serious issue and is caused by human emission of greenhouse gases, and I bet all the ladies out there know just how toxic gaseous emissions can be, especially when he's in bed, right? Oh men, what are they like?

But really we do need to take action on climate change, and it's difficult, because there'sso much misinformation out there - that's why most people think the greenhouse effect is what happens when your tomatoes are too small. And most people think tomatoes being too small is what happens when you take too many steroids. And most people think a steroid is something you play on an Atari! But I digress.

Point is, if we want to save our earth - and sometimes I wonder if we do, I mean men have pretty hairy backs - we need to take action NOW. I was discussing this just the other day at our place with our good friends and houseguests Julian Assange and Tim Flannery and Germaine Greer and Jose Ramos-Horta and Bob Geldof and Kofi Annan and Aung San Suu Kyi and Hillary Clinton - though with that hairdo she should be called Hillary ClintOFF, right? - and we all agreed that catastrophic climate change was less than desirable, a lot like a man who expects a roll in the hay after a day of not vacuuming the sofa.

Because after all, if we don't take care of the planet, what will be left for our children? Not that they'd notice what was happening to the planet what with all their iPod headphones and things, right? So it's up to use to take action before the earth becomes more inhospitable than Cher's vagina - hi-yo!

Look, there's plenty of world affairs I could run through for you - for example, sex: why do men think foreplay is how you start a game of golf? And feminism - most young girls today think Andrea Dworkin is a character from The Hobbit! And America - most Australians think Obama is what you say when you find out it's raining outside, but then again, once you go black you never go back right girls? I'd bunk down in those Baracks any old day! Right?

But time constraints prevent me from analysing (ha!) any further, so I'll say goodbye for now, and remember, STAY INFORMED!

A Most Befuddling Puzzlement

I am, I confess, confused. I was reading, as is my wont, Andrew Bolt's latest musings on the mores and manners that shape us as a people, in order to get a feel for the zeitgeist and become better-informed on the trends and dominant paradigms in our post-structuralist community, when I came across one certain article entitled:

HYPOCRITES HARM GAY MEN AND WOMEN

Now I found this interesting, as a fan of news, and I naturally read on to discover exactly what said hypocrites were doing to gay men and women. Beating them with sticks? Tripping them with wires? Hurling insults at them which can be very harmful because as Cher said words are like weapons they wound sometimes?

Imagine my surprise when I discovered none of these were the case. In fact Bolt was not exposing a worrying social trend of roving hypocrite gangs attacking stray gays at all, but rather commenting on a philosophical tug-o-war. To wit:

CONTRAST. In March, Australia's Human Rights Commission boasted it had entered a float in Sydney's Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras in "its campaign to allow same-sex marriage".


No fuss.
Last week, a board member of Victoria's Equal Opportunity Commission signed a petition "to oppose moves to 'same-sex marriage' ".
This time: screams, protests, outraged media and a resignation.
Pardon?

Ah, I saw the complaint being put forward by Australia's most-read columnist. He is actually complaining about the hypocrisy exhibited by so many members of the Australian left, in that they will happily acquiesce, or even applaud, when the Human Rights Commission engages in activities to promote human rights, but when a member of an Equal Opportunity Commission speaks out against equal opportunity, they howl in protest.

And it is indeed fair enough that Bolt - who has dedicated his life to exposing hypocrisy and humbug in all its forms - should highlight the inconsistency here, that so-called "politically correct" folk only protest against discrimination and people whose beliefs and actions are diametrically opposed to their jobs, but refuse to utter a peep against anti-discrimination and people who believe and act in accordance with the purpose of their positions. How, Bolt asks, pithily and with style, can the modern Left so fervently celebrate inclusiveness while utterly refusing to celebrate bigotry? What is it with the Left and its repellently brazen embrace of equal rights, so at odds with its fascistic opposition to unequal rights? How can one say he is in favour of equal rights if he opposes equal rights for inequality?

DOUBLE STANDARDS.

So in summary this was a very well-written article. But there is one part that troubles me, and I'm hoping that with your help we can unravel the mystery it poses. At one point in the piece, Bolt writes:

"After all, broadening the definition of marriage is not a question of equality, since gays are as free as anyone to marry anyone of the opposite sex."

Which is fine. As I am not a Leftist I am not trying to repress his freedom of speech, so write that sentence as much as you like, Mr Bolt, says I. But it raises a conundrum for me, which is: why did he write it? I am always interested in first causes and motivations, so the question of "why" is very important to me. My curiosity rages - there must have been a reason he wrote that sentence, and I've narrowed it down to the most obvious possibilities. I welcome any further suggestions in the comments.

Bolt wrote that sentence because:

a) He had recently suffered a severe blunt force trauma to the head, but was on such a tight deadline he had to complete and file his column prior to seeking medical attention.

b) Having suffered a crippling bout of writer's block, he sought to release the artist within via use of powerful hallucinogenic drugs, not realising such substances can have deleterious effects on one's perception of reality, causing the taker to believe in non-existent objects, sounds, or logic.

c) Bolt had recently triggered an ancient curse which caused him to swap bodies with a nearby five-year-old, and was forced to write a column using the mental capacity and personality of the child.

d) Bolt was toasting a fallen comrade in arms immediately before starting work but, unable to find any liquor in the house, had instead drunk several litres of lead paint.

e) Bolt is a merry prankster playing funny jokes with his readers by seeing if they're savvy enough to spot such sentences even when they are cloaked in the guise of something written by a functioning adult human being.

f) Bolt's parents were closely related by blood.

g) Bolt does not exist and is simply a nom-de-plume for a team of trained elephants who write his column by periodically sitting on a Macbook.

h) Bolt is very very very very very stupid.

Those are the potential explanations I've come up with for why he might have not only written the above but actually allowed it to be published in an actual newspaper, but I know there might be more. What do YOU think, readers? Let me know!

I Am Quite Proud

To have won a little prize: to wit, the Sydney Writers' Centre award for Funniest Post in the Best Australian Blogs 2012 competition.

The award was won for this post on the blog you are even now reading.

Congratulations to the other winners, especially Best Blog winner Eden Riley, and my pal Anna Spargo-Ryan, who won Best New Blog.

All the winners are detailed here.

Choose Your Own Adventure!

The story so far: you are an aspiring teen kickball player whose brother is not home by six. Armed with this information, you choose not to call Harold and instead accompany local halfwit "Lauren" to the docks, where adventure awaits...if you CHOOSE it to!

What happens next? It's up to you! Listen to the latest Gather Around Me Choose Your Own Adventure: The Terrorist Trap instalment, and decide what to do!

The TROUBLE with Government

Do you know what the TROUBLE is with our so-called GOVERNMENT?

It is that the GOVERNMENT is out of TOUCH.

Everywhere ordinary Australian CITIZENS are gathering around their water COOLERS and having conversations about the ISSUES which affect them PERSONALLY. These are ISSUES like:

- the high cost of living
- how much it costs to live
- the price of things
- prostitutes
- how much money you have to spend on items these days
- the modern problem of life being expensive
- Cabcharges
- LIES

But the GOVERNMENT does not UNDERSTAND these issues, because the government has no WATER COOLERS, and they are in CANBERRA, not the inner WEST where real people LIVE.

The government, in fact, thinks that LIES are FINE, because only LIBERALS object to them. So when ORDINARY people say, "hey government stop LYING", the government says, "this must be the work of LIBERALS!" This is a very OUT OF TOUCH thing to say. Also, they government believes the cost of LIVING is fine, and ordinary Australians need to stop WHINING, even though as Australians we have RIGHTS. If the government was IN touch instead of OUT of touch, it would KNOW this.

These are the issues the GOVERNMENT thinks are important:

- shaking the president of America's hand
- taxing the air in our Coke cans
- destroying wealth
- having sex with Bob Brown
- assassinating each other

These are not things the PUBLIC approves of. But as an ORDINARY Australian who works for NEWSPAPERS I am here to tell the PUBLIC that the GOVERNMENT does not care what it approves of because it is out OF touch.

The trouble is that the GOVERNMENT has never had a proper JOB. People in government don't WORK like you and me, they have STUPID jobs like union OFFICIALS and LAWYERS and political OPERATIVES who never see the sweat of their own hands upon their brows.

Here are some jobs that REAL Australians who UNDERSTAND issues have:

- journalist
- opinion writer
- television pundit
- coal miner
- royal watcher
- water cooler maintenance operative
- commentators
- steel worker
- John Farnham


Here are some jobs that POLITICIANS have:

- politician
- idiot who will one day be a politician


Is it any WONDER these people are out of TOUCH? The Prime Minister has never spoken to a NORMAL person in her entire LIFE. She has not even spoken to a marriage CELEBRANT because she won't get MARRIED and she has never spoken to an OBSTETRICIAN because she does not have CHILDREN. I have children and I can say that it gives you a PERSPECTIVE on life that people who don't HAVE children and are pathological LIARS do not have. That is WHY I am giving this free ADVICE to the GOVERNMENT based on years of EXPERIENCE as a real Australian with functioning SPERM.

I am sure the FAT cats in Canberra will dismiss this hard-hitting and HONEST article as simply another case of LIBERALS, but all I want is for the government to get in TOUCH with everyday battlers and REALISE just how much we HATE it when politicians LIE to use about how they paid for their SEX workers, and when they ask their ASSISTANTS to shower with the door OPEN. If the government does not stop being out of touch SOON, all our shower doors will be open and we will vote in the LIBERALS because at least they are IN TOUCH WITH US.

Please LISTEN to me, I am a JOURNALIST (see above).

A politician being IN TOUCH with ordinary Australians

One Hour One Life

Of course as you know depression is something I comment on from time to time, and I've just written a piece for news.com.au on the difficulties of talking openly about depression.

That piece is part of a campaign news.com.au is running in conjunction with Lifeline this month, One Hour One Life. Click on the link to find out all about it - basically there'll be a series of stories about depression and mental illness, in aid of a new Lifeline service, the Online Crisis Support Chat. This goes live on May 8. An hour of time on the chat service costs around $31, and Lifeline and news.com.au are looking for goodhearted folk such as yourself to stump up a little spare change to help connect people in need of help with someone who can give them some.

It is, I reckon, a pretty great cause, and I'm pretty proud to be associated with it.